Journeying into the Ancient Church (revision of “A Mere Christian Journey”)

“You just need to choose a theological camp and commit yourself to it,” my friend said in exasperation. He was concerned for me, and he couldn’t understand why I couldn’t fully commit myself to any one denominational position. I think by this point he would have been content with an arbitrary decision.  I just needed to join a (Protestant) theological camp and stick with it.

My problem was what I saw as the provisional nature of denominational authority. Advocates of each position have ways to defend their ideas from Scripture, but they disagree with one another in very important ways (and, of course, each is sure that all the others are wrong). But their authority is based on their ability to make a credible defense to me, as an individual. A number of years ago, a family visited the church I was pastoring, and one of the first things they asked me for was a doctrinal statement. They wanted to make sure that we were in line, theologically, with their understanding of Scripture (and, since we were not, they ended up attending somewhere else). In practice, denominational authority rests not in the Scriptures or in the Church, but in the interpreting individual, and the problem with this, for me, was that the more I learned, the more I saw the inadequacies of whichever system I was trying to embrace. I couldn’t commit myself unless I was convinced, but even after I was convinced there was the possibility that further investigation and a better argument would lead me somewhere else.

After committing my life to Christ in a Pentecostal church, I believed that speaking in tongues is the sign of receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. But then I began to encounter, both in person and in my reading, Christians who showed strong evidence of the presence of the Spirit but who had never spoken in tongues. After reading John Calvin and an assortment of the Puritans and their successors, I embraced Reformed Theology. I became a Presbyterian, certain that this was where I belonged. But I discovered, among Reformed Christians, a remarkable tendency to fragment in search of a truer version of the Reformed Faith. A friend of mine left the Orthodox Presbyterian Church a number of years ago and started meeting with a group of people he found online, because he believed these people were more serious about the Westminster Confession of Faith. Since most Presbyterians I knew admitted that others outside the denomination were true Christians–but that Presbyterianism was a fuller, truer expression of Christianity– it was clear that Presbyterianism was less than the fullness of the Church, which raised the question, “why do our differences with other believing orthodox Christians necessitate separation into different church bodies?” 

I’ve heard various explanations for this. Some are based on a desire to maintain doctrinal purity in the church: “of course, it’s true that these people are part of the body of Christ, but they have certain theological errors which we can’t tolerate in the church.” Others are based on pragmatic concerns: “you can’t build a church life with people who disagree theologically.” Mind you, those concerned about doctrinal purity don’t normally accuse their opponents of actual heresy; both sides acknowledge one another as theologically orthodox, which raises the question, “if God puts up with their ‘errors’ and remains in fellowship with them, why can’t we?” Is doctrinal uniformity more important than showing forbearance toward one another in the light of our continuing imperfection and God’s gracious acceptance of us? I found myself enriched and challenged by worshiping and working with believers from other theological perspectives during my four years with the missions group Operation Mobilization. We were free to talk about our differences as long as we treated one another with respect. What I learned from this experience is that it is possible for Christians who think differently to worship together, recognizing that our oneness in Christ is more important than those differences which are rooted in our present state of imperfection.

During my first 20 years as a Christian, the one constant was my assumption that Roman Catholicism was a corrupt form of Christianity. Then, in graduate school, I began interacting with, and reading, Catholic thinkers. I found, in Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Novak, a serious engagement with culture and a passionate commitment to the gospel. I went on to discover John Henry Newman, Romano Guardini, G.K. Chesterton, Thomas Howard and many others, Roman Catholics with a deep, solid commitment to Jesus Christ. Somewhere along the way I also discovered Eastern Orthodoxy and found Orthodox writers feeding my soul with their reflections on Scripture and their teachings on prayer. 

Over the years since I left Operation Mobilization I’ve favored the term, ‘mere Christianity,’ but the problem is, where in the Church does one go to be a mere Christian? It’s simpler if one is settled in a tradition and is able to exist there with an appreciation for the larger historic Church. In the mid-1990's, in my desire to find a church home after I left Presbyterianism, I decided to connect with the small Pietistic Anabaptist denomination I had encountered in college. I had not become Anabaptist by conviction, but this particular group had a history of embracing one another across significant theological differences (similar to what I had experienced during my years with OM), so I thought there would be freedom there, at least, to continue exploring and thinking. I even became a pastor and served in ministry for eight years. But at the same time that I was moving into a deeper appreciation of the historic Church, the leaders of my denomination were embracing the mega-church movement and were increasingly uncomfortable with the things that had drawn me to their church. After eight years I again found myself ecclesially homeless, having been invited by my bishop to find ministry opportunities elsewhere. The problem with trying to be a mere Christian is not how  to do so in a stable church environment; the question is how to find a stable church environment when one is in a state of theological and ecclesiological development, given the fragmentary nature of North American Christianity.  Dwight Longnecker points out that those seeking to be mere Christians increasingly find themselves, like me, without a church home (More Christianity, p. 30).

As I have continued to reflect on all this, I’ve begun to see a pattern, an overarching tendency, in this long, and frequently perplexing, journey. I’ve been, over the years, even without knowing it, looking for a rooted authority (rather than an arbitrary authority based on my limited understanding as an individual interpreter); and I’ve been looking for largeness and fullness (as opposed to the highly fragmentary and reductive nature of denominationalism). This points in the direction of two words, both of which are contained in the Nicene Creed: Apostolic, for a rooted authority; and Catholic, for the largeness and fullness of the Church, which leads me to believe I have been mistaken in limiting my search to the world of denominational Protestantism.

The early Church submitted to the writings of the apostles, but also to their verbal instructions.  So a Church that is Apostolic is rooted in both the verbal and written teachings handed on to the following generations of leaders: according to the apostle Paul, the Church, rather than the Bible, is the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). And a Church that is Catholic seeks to embody the fullness of Christian possibilities, not striving for a doctrinal purity which reduces the Church by setting one group of Christians apart from all others.  Several years ago I came across the term “More Christianity” (Dwight Longnecker), expressing the need for something more than the least-common-denominator approach of Mere Christianity that I have embraced in the past.  Longnecker, a former evangelical who became Catholic, notes that “Catholics affirm all that other Christians affirm; they simply cannot deny what they deny” (p. 37).

The problem with the journey I’ve been describing is that I have been the one in charge, making authoritative judgments about church teachings.  With the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, authority ends up residing not in Scripture, but in the individual.  Each church needs to sell itself to me, but I make the final determination about whether it is true to the Bible. In rejecting the authority of the Church, the Reformation ended up placing authority in the individual.  

I increasingly agree with Louis Bouyer, who argues in The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism that the Reformers were generally right in the things they affirmed and wrong in the things they denied; this led to a loss of the fullness of Christian teaching.  In the terms listed above, the Roman Catholic Church is Apostolic, rooted in the apostles and their successors, and it is Catholic, holding onto the full richness that God has given to His people.  I can listen with confidence to the Church established by Jesus Christ and built on the foundation of apostles and prophets.  I don’t need to choose a theological camp based on my limited understanding; I can submit with confidence to the historic Church as teacher, the “pillar and foundation of truth.”